Last Updated: March 31, 2026
Managing data in Salesforce is becoming increasingly complex as organizations scale. With growing customer interactions, transactions, and integrations, businesses generate massive volumes of data every day. Over time, storing all this data in standard or custom objects not only increases data storage costs but can also impact system performance and reporting efficiency.
This is where Salesforce Big Objects come into the picture.
Salesforce Big Objects are specifically designed to handle billions of records seamlessly without affecting the performance of your core Salesforce environment. They provide a scalable and efficient way to store historical, archival, and compliance-related data while keeping your operational data fast and responsive.
In 2026, with the rise of AI-driven analytics and data-heavy applications, organizations are no longer just storing data—they are strategically managing it. Big Objects play a key role in modern data architecture by enabling long-term storage while supporting performance optimization and cost control.
In this guide, you’ll learn what Salesforce Big Objects are, how they work, their limitations, real-world use cases, and best practices to use them effectively in your data strategy. and how DataArchiva, the only native archiving solution powered by Big Objects in Salesforce, solves the pressing archival and compliance challenges enterprises face.
Salesforce Big Objects are designed to store and manage billions of records without impacting Salesforce performance. They are best used for archiving, compliance, and large-scale historical data where frequent updates are not required.
Want a deeper understanding of how Big Objects work in real scenarios? Explore our complete guide on Salesforce Big Objects to see how enterprises manage large-scale data efficiently.
What Are Salesforce Big Objects?
Salesforce Big Objects is a specialized data storage solution built to handle massive datasets at scale. Unlike standard or custom objects, they are optimized for long-term storage and performance rather than transactional operations.
They allow organizations to store historical data efficiently without affecting the performance of core CRM processes.
Top Features of Salesforce Big Objects
- Store billions of records efficiently
- No impact on core Salesforce performance
- Indexed-based querying for fast retrieval
- Designed for archival and compliance use cases
- Built within Salesforce for seamless internal data management
Salesforce Data Archival: A Big Objects Use Case
Let’s first understand how Salesforce Big Objects rose to fame as a top choice for transitioning from the convenience of standard or custom objects to Salesforce Big Objects for archive revolution:
1. Horizontal Scaling Approach
Salesforce Big Objects is horizontally scalable, a clear advantage for objects that exceed millions of records. For example, when your Salesforce data hits the billion-row mark, those standard objects become redundant. Hence, to avoid the budget pinch of extra Salesforce storage costs, preference goes to Big Objects. It’s like a budget-friendly storage unit in Salesforce where you stash away all that historical data you don’t use every day.
2. Zero External Dependencies
Since the historical data is saved well-within the Salesforce ecosystem, without ever being exposed to any external system, organizations dealing with sensitive data can easily rely on Big Objects.
3. Archival at Optimum Cost
In addition to being cost-effective, Big Objects offers the advantage of a large volume of archived historical data readily available whenever needed.
4. Sustains the Data’s Relational Structure
Unlike other systems, Big Objects eliminate or diminish the need for having to create integrated relationships between archived historical data and then having to maintain them. This evens out the scores to redo the data profiling analysis to check the quality. The direct familiarity with the original data framework of Salesforce, makes Big Objects extremely user-friendly henceforth assuring a streamlined experience while using old Salesforce data archives.
Salesforce Data Archival: A Big Objects Use Case
Typically, most enterprises use Big Objects for fulfilling one of these three specific use cases:
- 360-degree View of the Customer– Custom Big Objects can be deployed to integrate all the detailed customer information in a single place. Comprehensive information about various loyalty programs, feeds, clicks, billing details, provisioning information, and much more can be stored here. This can help optimize customer relationships and get a complete customer analysis report.
- Auditing and Change Tracking– Custom Big Objects frequently are used for auditing and tracking purposes, where archived data is helpful in keeping a long-term view of the user’s Salesforce usage, mainly for analysis or compliance purposes. This feature is extremely useful in heavily regulated industries like financial, healthcare, and government sectors.
- Historical Archives– The real perk that Big Objects facilitates is the historical archive feature, which potentially solves the age-old Salesforce data storage problem. In this, proper access to the historical data is maintained for analysis or compliance purposes while optimizing the performance of the core CRM or Lightning Platform applications.
See how real businesses are solving data growth challenges with Salesforce archiving.
Salesforce Big Objects Limits
- Only indexed fields can be queried
- No support for triggers
- No standard reporting support
- Limited UI accessibility
- Not suitable for real-time updates
These limitations make Big Objects ideal for storage, not processing.
Salesforce Big Objects vs Standard Objects
| Feature | Standard Objects | Big Objects |
|---|---|---|
| Storage Capacity | Limited | Virtually Unlimited |
| Performance Impact | High at scale | Minimal |
| Query Flexibility | High | Limited (index-based) |
| Best Use Case | Active data | Historical data |
Businesses Advantages of Maintaining Big Objects
Big Objects offers businesses running on Salesforce a scalable solution for efficiently managing large volumes of legacy data. Since we have elaborated so much on the specific scenarios where Big Objects are helpful, its best to shed some light on some of the key benefits they provide:
- Ideal For Future Storage: Big Objects is essentially Salesforce’s Big Data-based storage system that stores all the important historical data on a secure native platform, guaranteeing the highest levels of security & integrity. Even as the company expands and even more data is generated, these storage systems can easily adapt to that and therefore can be relied on as a steady means of future storage.
- Cost-effective Storage Option: Big Objects offers an extremely cost-effective storage solution when compared to the additional data storage purveyed by Salesforce, which is immensely expensive. An organization can ideally save over 80% of its data storage costs by simply leveraging Big Objects.
- Analytics and Prediction: Analytics can be efficiently and effortlessly used on the huge volumes of data stored in Big Objects, and essential insights can easily be narrowed down from heaps of data. This reduces the need to implement external analytical tools and techniques, thereby saving costs even further.
- High-Volume Transaction Processing: For scenarios where there are high volumes of transactions, such as financial transactions or e-commerce orders, Salesforce Big Objects can be employed to efficiently handle and store this data while maintaining performance.
- Long-Term Trend Analysis: Storing historical records allows organizations to perform long-term trend analysis on their Salesforce data. This can be beneficial for gaining insights into customer behavior, market trends, and other historical patterns.
- Async SOQL: Async SOQL is perhaps the most efficient way of processing a large volume of data in the Big Objects. Being highly scalable solutions, Big Objects use a subset of SOQL commands thereby making it simple for anyone already familiar with SOQL to use them.
- Addressing Audit and Compliance Demands: With the introduction of GDPR, it is now mandatory for businesses operating in the EU to store all customer-related data. Using Big Objects, an enterprise can retain its Salesforce data for a longer period of time adhering to the compliance purposes. They are the perfect solution for keeping the customer data within the Salesforce system itself without exposing it externally.
At this juncture, it is important to point out that Big Objects are merely a storage option and in order to use them to archive the historical data, an archiving solution is necessary.
When Should You Use Salesforce Big Objects?
Use When:
- You need to store massive volumes of historical data
- Data is rarely updated
- You want to improve Salesforce performance
Avoid When:
- Real-time processing is required
- Data updates frequently
- Complex queries are needed
Salesforce Big Objects in 2026: AI & Data Trends
In 2026, data strategies are evolving with AI and automation. Big Objects are now used as part of a broader data ecosystem.
Key Trends:
- Integration with AI-driven analytics platforms
- Hybrid data strategies (Big Objects + Data Lakes)
- Increased use in compliance-heavy industries
- Shift toward automated data lifecycle management
Businesses are no longer just storing data—they are optimizing it for AI and insights.
Final Thoughts
If you’re struggling with Salesforce’s expensive data storage, slow CRM performance, or regulatory data retention needs, Salesforce Big Objects offers the ultimate native solution. They’re scalable, cost-efficient, and tightly integrated within the Salesforce ecosystem.
But remember, Big Objects in Salesforce are only a storage framework. To turn them into a true archiving solution, you need DataArchiva, the only Salesforce-native tool that archives, optimizes, and retains your data smartly and affordably.
Whether you’re a Salesforce admin looking to stretch your storage budget or a CIO seeking audit-ready archives, Salesforce Big Objects powered by DataArchiva is your go-to strategy.
Explore DataArchiva today and see how native data archiving can redefine your Salesforce performance, compliance, and cost efficiency. Request a Demo Now!
Ready to take control of your growing Salesforce data?
Explore a powerful data archiving solution designed to optimize storage, improve performance, and ensure compliance—without compromising accessibility.
